There are wonderful things in real jazz, the talent for improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.
—Henri Matisse
Though music oft hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
—William Shakespeare
The ear is the avenue to the heart.
—Voltaire
Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep. It's always in the middle of the bloody night, or when you're half awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is.
—John Lennon
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
—Elvis Costello
I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.
—Edith Sitwell
The professional because of his constant involvement with the mechanics of music, must fight to preserve the naiveté that the layman already possesses.
—Bill Evans
Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life.
—Jean Paul
If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
—Marcus Bridgstocke
If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.
—Johnny Carson
What music is more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say?
—Logan Pearsall Smith
There is no doubt that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead.
—Arthur Honegger